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This year we put all the Easter eggs into brown paper bags. Then decorated these with a vintage Easter picture glued on the front. Next punched a hole in the bags then tied up he bag with ribbons. Very exciting for the children as they had so much fun unwrapping the bags to see what was inside...Yes there were too many Easter eggs, we all got a bit carried away. All this was done at the last minute....in fact it was a hit and one of the easiest Easter hunts we have done.

The vegetable garden has been doing really well this year, especially the tomatoes. My daughter looks after the garden, I just collect the produce...and look after the rabbit.

Feeding the soil

Bunny poop it's his job to feed the soil. Here he is eating the'Alpine Strawberry'.

Out and about in the garden...just having a rest while my hutch is cleaned.He's a 'Chestnut' Angora rabbit.

Garden Pollinators

We were so lucky this year we had a bumblebee nest at the back of the garden. Such busy bees collecting pollen all day long. There are four types of bumblee bees in New Zealand.

They won't sting unless you make them angry...Did you know bumblebeesare attracted to blue?

The Bumblebee Nest

Having a Bumblebee nest in the garden is okay, they are harmless unless youmake them angry. They just go about their business. We need bumblebee'sin the garden. We were so lucky to have this nest in our garden.

My lavender was at it 's best too. I didn't pick any because the whole garden was turned into a bee garden, spray free, with plenty of flowers to attract the bees.

Lavender 'Arabian Nights'

Lavender 'Dilly Dilly' my favourite. Attracts the bees...

I think the bee below is a solitary 'Carpenter Bee'. Whoever he was, he spent most of his time chasing the bumblebees off the lavender. Very funny to watch him hovering...A bit unlucky though, too many honey bees, and bumblebees. The solitary bee was unable to have the lavender to himself.

Bee: Carpenter male.

And this little girl just loved the Strawberries that she found in the 'Strawberry Patch'.

I lost my blog mojo, and with all the 'curved balls life brings' I just spent more time on Instagram so easy to just take a photo and put it up and follow some fellow bloggers....But I lost my tomato sauce recipe, and suddenly I remembered it was on my blog, so here I am!

Today was so hot...Here are a few pics of my day, a very quiet day! I spent some time taking photos of the cats who spent the morning inside too.

I loved this fabric when I bought it and it's been in my stash for ages. It's a jersey knit, with plenty of stretch. I liked the feel of it so I bought it...It was really enjoyable sewing this fabric, I was really careful pressing it as I didn't want the fabric to stretch any further.

The one and only problem I had, and it was my own fault. I overlocked the hem, then used a twin needle to top stitch the hem (too lazy to change the thread on my Janome cover-pro). This was a big mistake...Firstly I should not have tried to twin needle stitch over an overlocked edge...The whole hem had major tunnelling. Actually I didn't know why I did this because usually I just sew without overlocking the edge if I'm using a twin needle.

Lesson learnt...I re-did the hem with the cover-stitch machine and it turned out perfect.

Unpicking started off well, I use cheap snips to do this...Though in
the end I cut the hem off and started again.

The cover stitching was perfect, no missed stitches. I used my 'HumperJumper' to go over the seams.

Vogue 8634 Size: M. Easy sew a little big fitting wise, but I would definitely sew
this top again.

Long top made to be worn with tights...not over this A frame skirt. I had
a reluctant model who didn't want to change into tights for the pic.

It looks lovely and warm for winter but I think I could have made it
slightly more fitted...

Side view...

The fitting of this top is a bit big because my model had 2 layers
of clothing underneath when I did the fitting so now it looks slightly loose!

A Sewing Disaster

I've just tried out McCall's 7130 skirt pattern, Size L. All went very well until I pinned it together, then it started to stretch bigger, and bigger. I think it had ended up more like a XL. Otherwise it's a great pattern and I'd use it again definitely.

What a surprise for me I made most of the skirt on my Elna 745 overlocker with no problems at all..In fact it was a dream to sew with.

Finished skirt hanging on the line looks more like a coffee sack and not reallytrue to colour...it's much brighter.

Unfortunately though I had a bad Janome cover-pro day. I fixed up the stitch tension the other day so everything was set up ready to go, and I was sewing happily away until the stitches broke...Then the Janome Cover-pro didn't make any stitches and then it did. In fact this is the worst cover hem I have ever done...

So much for my three thread cover-pro. By the way I have never ever had success with using 3-thread stitch on the Janome the thread always breaks. What a mess my hem became, it was it was just plain ugly and chewed up... Don't you hate that?

What a mess! No I'm not unpicking it, much too hard to do...I'll haveto cut it off!

The finished skirt is wearable, but the photo doesn't do it justice as it's not so sack like when wearing it. The hem is not good though and I've left the hem for now. I'm going to decide whether to chop it off and start again using the 2-thread stitch.

The finished hem...and a plain stretch stitch hem using the Juki on anotherskirt. The other skirt look much better. I knew I should have just used a plain stretch stitch and not bothered with the Janome Cover-pro.

In the midst of it all the fat cat sat and the brown dog watched...

Behaving themselves for once...they love to be where I am, just watching.

After all this trouble I'm now playing around with the Janome. I have now changed the Janome Cover-pro back to a narrow two thread. The stitches below look perfect. So I will see how It all goes on the next knit garment I sew.

Perfect! Do you find that when you set your machine up to sew in a couple of days/ Then when you use it, it seems like Gremlins have been at it and all thetensions are changed. The numbers no longer work...

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